There was me thinking I’d been so clever this morning! I’d a whole blog prepared which was a rewrite of an article I’d written for RAIL magazine back in 2017. I was all ready to publish it then realised I couldn’t find the damned pictures to go with it! All my pictures (so I thought) are backed-up. Either on my Zenfolio website or on several hard-drives. Only one particular hard-drive failed earlier this year. And guess where the pictures are? Hopefully I’ll be able to get all of them recovered as it sounds like a mechanical failure rather then anything more serious. Even so, it’s made me think about how I look at backing up pictures in the future.
This means today’s blog is going to be very short and the picture of the day not what I was going to display at all. But, it does fit my mood as this is somewhere I’d much rather be right now. I took this picture of a sunset in Mandrem, North Goa, India on the 31st January 2002.
I can still hear the sound of the sea and feel the heat on my skin as I look at the picture. I am soooo looking forward to getting back to international travelling just as soon as this shitty time is over. OK, it’s not *all* bad, I’ll be on the rails in the UK again very soon, so expect a few rolling blogs and pictures from around the UK. In the meantime – enjoy this picture and relax….
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You’ll be relieved to know there’s no long, rambling blog from me today before I cut to the chase and post a picture.. Well, there might be a little one. There’s so much to write about but so few hours to fit it in to. This morning was spent in a ‘Zoom’ call judging three categories in this year’s Community Rail Awards. Myself and my other august judges, plus Sarah from Community Rail Network (who very capably did the behind the scenes stuff with spreadsheets, despite being drafted in at the last moment) agreed the winners for three of the categories in this year’s awards. Obviously, I’m not going to spill any beans but what I will say is that the winners were never really in dispute between the four of us – and we individually marked them without reference to each other. That said, the standard of entries was amazing and and choosing the shortlisted entries was really tough. Despite the pandemic, the world of community rail has been doing some brilliant stuff. The results will be announced in December when the awards themselves will be held in Southampton – having been postponed from the same location in 2020. There’s some fantastic projects that’ll be recognised, but for now my lips are sealed…
Judging done I’ve cracked on with other projects and picture editing in the hope I can escape for the day with the camera tomorrow – weather permitting, although this will entail an early start – hence the shortness of this blog. Which brings me on to the picture of the day…
I took this shot one morning in January, 1998. It’s the view from outside the hostel we were staying in at the hill station of Kodikanal in Tamil Nadu in Southern India.
Kodaikanal is 2133 metres above sea level. It’s quite a journey to get there by bus from the plains of Tamil Nadu below. There’s a heck of a temperature change in either direction. But, imagine waking up in the morning and stepping outside your room to a view like this, because this is exactly what we saw when we did…
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Welcome to a new week. I had it scheduled in my diary as one I’d been spending entirely at home as I had to finish judging entries in three different categories for the 2021 Community Rail Awards. As Dawn wasn’t at work today because she was driving down to Surrey I decided to get up at Sparrowfart, let her sleep and get on with the marking. So, coffee made – I was in the office at 06:30 this morning, reading and annotating the final entries out of the three groups I’m judging for, which meant I was finished before lunchtime. There’s some excellent entries but there’s nothing I can say at this stage – for obvious reasons. Tomorrow my fellow Judges and I come together on ‘Zoom’ to see what we’ve each shortlisted and agree the final shortlist and placings. I’ll be fascinated to see if we near enough have the same people placed!
Having completed my effort and seen Dawn off on her travels I decided to make the most of the sunny weather and escape with the camera for a few hours. There’s a huge amount of subjects on my shot-list, but today I decided to stay local. Well, within Yorkshire anyway! Having walked into Halifax I caught a train to Bradford then walked between the city’s stations to take the long way around to Leeds. On the way I stopped to grab a few pictures at Kirkstall Forge station as the light was ideal. What was less than ideal is the frequency of the stations automated announcements. The station has a half-hourly service, which means there’s several trains per hour that pass non-stop. Not a problem in itself, apart from the fact ‘Digital Doris’ seems to have no idea when they’re due so fills the air with ‘Stand well back from the platform edge, the next train is not scheduled to stop here” every minute. Great, but no train’s due to pass for 7 minutes! I timed them! It’s like the boy who cried wolf. You get so sick of hearing the announcement that you turn off. Then suddenly, a train does whizz past. The old expression ‘less is more’ springs to mind.
Anyway, gripe aside, I continued my trip into Leeds in time to catch one of the trains I was after. LNER used to have a daily service from Harrogate to London Kings Cross. Essentially it was one out in the morning that would return in the evening. I never managed to get pictures of them, but now the service runs roughly every two hours, so I thought it was time to get this one in the can. Besides, the chance to juxtapose new intercity trains with traditional (albeit a renewed version) semaphore signalling isn’t that common. Here’s one of the shots.
Having worked 1D16, the 1333 London Kings Cross to Harrogate, set 800205 slinks off to the refurbished and renewed turnback siding before returning to London as 1A46, the 1736 Harrogate to London Kings Cross. To the left is a replicated bracket semaphore signal which was installed as it was easier than replacing it with modern signalling as the station’s still controlled from the old BR built signalbox behind the train to the right. The signal has all the aesthetics of a car-crash compared to a (once elegant) LNER lattice structure beyond. The semaphore arms look like they’ve been mounted on standard-length scaffold pole that no-one could be bothered to cut to size or cap-off.
Signalling aside, seeing these units at Harrogate makes a change from the standard diet of ‘Northern’ multiple units , even if they have gone more upmarket since the demise of the ‘Pacers’. Here’s a case in point. this is a shot of 800205’s return working passing an ex-Scotrail Class 170 which has been cascaded to Northern. The pair are seen at Horsforth, the only other station between Harrogate and Leeds that LNER call at.
Right, enough from me tonight. I’ve another early start tomorrow in order to clear the decks for Judging. Depending on how it goes I *may* venture out again tomorrow. If not, there’s still plenty of old pictures to keep you entertained with. So, for now – goodnight…
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Ah, lazy Sunday! Well, sort of – ish! After having a thoroughly enjoyable day and evening at a friends wedding yesterday we’d deliberately left today’s calendar blank. We may not have been up with the Larks but we still made the most of the day. Yesterday’s wedding threatened to be a washout due to the weather. Fortunately the showers held off for all the most important parts of the day. Having rendezvoused at the Ukrainian Club in Huddersfield where the post wedding celebrations were to take place we all boarded a vintage double-deck bus (a 1962 Daimler ex-Leeds for those who like to know such things) which took us to and from the Methodist church in nearby Denby Dale where the wedding ceremony took place. I have to admit to having a soft spot for old buses, but that’s us public transport geeks for you! Trains, trams or buses – I’m a fan of them all…
The evening do was great fun as Dawn and I caught up with so many people whom we’ve not seen for ages due to Covid. We also had chance to socialise with some of Dee’s colleagues whom we see more often, but not outside of work, so that was another bonus. All in all, it was great day and we’re really happy for Paul and Hazel that it all came together in such style.
That lousy weather I mentioned has hung around all day today, but neither of us minded. Dawn’s kept herself occupied packing for a trip to her brothers in Surrey in order to ‘mind the shop’ whilst he’s on holiday in Greece. Meanwhile, I’ve been busy with old pictures and paperwork for various jobs and clients. Admittedly, I couldn’t resist getting out for a walk and spending a some time watching the weather. I love the way the skies over the Calder Valley are constantly changing. I can see why the artist Ashley Jackson fell in love with Yorkshire.
One of my favorite perches is just down the road from where we live. The walk there is lovely, as it takes you through local woodland. It’s also a bit of a climb, so you feel you’ve done something positive to get there rather than just sitting on your arse back at home. So, today’s picture is one I took earlier from the promenade, gazing out across Sowerby Bridge and the Calder Valley as I waited for the next rain-storm to arrive…
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It’s an early picture of the day today as we’re off to a wedding this afternoon which makes blogging this evening look very unlikely – for obvious reasons! It’s been an interesting and varied week that’s highlighted the fact the world is slowly returning to normal after the chaos caused by Covid. Sadly for our friends who’re getting married today, the one thing they’ve absolutely no control over (the weather) hasn’t played ball. Here in the Calder Valley the hilltops are submerged underneath thunderous looking low cloud and misted by rain. The wedding’s in Denby Dale/Huddersfield but I doubt the conditions will be any different. Even so, we hope Hazel and Paul have a fabulous day and their spirits aren’t dampened. We’ll certainly be doing our best to make it enjoyable for them.
The wedding will be the climax of a very sociable week – another indicator we’re recovering from the pandemic. We’ve felt a bit like hermits over the past 18 months. Now the vaccination programme’s reached such a level and Covid cases appear to be manageable the idea of socialising with friends (and strangers) seems a lot less intimidating. That doesn’t mean Dawn and I have thrown caution to the wind – far from it. We both still wear masks when out shopping, on public transport or when we feel the situation merits them but we’re allowing ourselves some optimism and certainly more freedom. Judging by the number of people I’ve experienced returning to the railways we’re not alone in those feelings. What we both want now is to be able to have a holiday, preferably somewhere sunny, but right now, we’re still being cautious on international travel.
Sadly, that means I’m not likely to be seeing sights like today’s picture until 2022. This is one of the latest batch of old slides that I’ve been scanning and it comes from the 18 month long round the world trip Lynn and I took in 1997-99. I took this picture in Hampi, Karnataka, India in December 1997…
Ever seen an elephant stables before? No, neither had I until we visited the ruins of Hampi, which is a UNESCO world heritage site and former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. It’s a remarkable and rather surreal place which has laid abandoned since it was destroyed by sultanate armies in 1565. Don’t expect to explore it all in a day, the ruins cover over 16 sq miles!
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Today’s been a day for slaving away at home editing the pictures that I took yesterday, catching up on some paperwork and researching stuff for future blogs. Not exactly what you’d call exciting but just the job after yesterday’s little stroll. At least my shoulders get a break from the weight of the camera bag!
As it’s Friday Dawn and I did something unusual (well, for us anyway) by going out for a drink with friends in Halifax. We rarely visit the town centre as we tend to gravitate to Sowerby Bridge or more local hostelries. Today we’re trying somewhere different. Over the past few years there’s been an explosion of micropubs and new bars which have taken over some of the empty shops in town. Today we visited one of the older ones – The Victorian craft beer cafe in Powell St, behind the Victoria Theatre. It’s a cracking, multi-roomed place that has all the right elements you’d hope for. Spread over several levels and with a real variety of nooks and crannies and a bar that has an excellent variety of beers (no, it’s not all ‘craft’, nor expensive due to the name) the place is well worth a visit. The five of us had a great night and I’m sure we’ll be back. Much as we’d liked to have stayed Dawn and I had to leave early as Dee has a wedding cake to finish making. Yep, we’re off to a wedding tomorrow, so a blog may (or may) not appear.
In the meantime I’ll leave you with the picture of the day which is from the latest batch of old slides I’ve been scanning. Right now I’m on an album that contains a real mish-mash of slides that either were never properly filed and just ended up crammed in albums – or ones that got mis-filed. This one’s a case in point. I took this picture in Arambol, Goa, India in December 1997. Friends of Lynn and I had a bakery/cafe there called ‘Double Dutch (Axel and Lucie are both Dutch – and there’s a looongg story about them cycling from the Netherlands to India for another time). This is a chap who was known as ‘Forest’ performing a fire dance routine in their garden whilst I played around with the camera…
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I’m not used to doing this anymore! I was up at 05:00 preparing to head off for this morning’s job over in Wakefield. Getting up whilst it’s still dark is a novelty nowadays, although the with days getting shorter it’s going to become all too familiar soon. Right now I’m sipping coffee whilst I finish getting my kit together whilst trying not to disturb Dawn and Jet, who’re still curled up in and on a warm bed it was hard to leave! Still, let’s see what the day brings, eh?…
07:10.
I gave myself plenty of time to walk to the station so that I could enjoy the trip without breaking into a sweat. Hardly anyone was about except for a few dog-walkers and the odd early-bird like me, which made made for a pleasent trip where I could enjoy the birdsong rather than the noise of traffic.
Halifax station was rather different. It’s much busier than I’ve seen it at this time of day for quite some time. Many folk are waiting for the Grand Central service to London which is good to see. As an open access operator GC had a terrible time during the pandemic. Unlike the franchises, they receive no government support, leaving them totally reliant on ticket sales. This left them no option but to suspend operations for several months. Now they’re bouncing back. This service was a lifeline for me when I moved from London to West Yorkshire and I’ve got to know many of the staff so I’m really happy to see them recovering.
07:25.
When we pulled in to Brighouse it was great to see a few dozen people waiting for our train. This really is starting to feel like the ‘old days’! The station platforms are looking very attractive right now as the planters maintained by the local station friends are looking resplendent. The local history boards on each platform added earlier this year add another nice touch.
07:31.
We’ve picked up well over a dozen people at our next stop (Mirfield). Most look like holiday makers – the people who’ve been returning to the railway in droves..
08:45.
Wakefield Kirkgate also held droves of passengers waiting for us. As I degraindd I bumped into Alan, an old friend from Grand Central. We had time for a quick chat (he confirmed my suspicions about passenger growth) before I wandered off to my job. I’m there now, soI’ll be offline for a few hours. Catch you later…
11:45.
I’m back! I’ve spent a couple of hours taking staff portraits for a rail industry magazine and now I’m back on the rails at Wakefield Kirkgate, a station I once christened Britain’s worst. But look at it now!
Even the area outside the station’s been brightened up as the derelict pub has been rebuilt for residential use. Sadly, the excellent little station cafe remains closed, but Alan informs me it’s due to reopen next month.
14:00.
I’m currently taking a break in Sheffield as the warm and sunny weather I enjoyed in Wakefield is being disturbed by a band of rain crossing the country. I’d headed down this way to visit a station that I’ve not been to for several years but was on my list due to the excellent work the local station friends group has done on keeping it attractive whilst also explaining the area’s industrial heritage with history boards. There’s an lovely old tub wagon in the garden outside with celebrates the history of mining and steelmaking. What I never knew is that the pretty village was once *the* centre for making rails for the railways. The Wilson Cammell works opened in 1873 and became the foremost rail making plant in Britain, exporting worldwide. Then, in 1882 the decision was taken to move the plant wholesale to Workington in Cumbria (where I was last week) which led to the industrial decline of the village.
Having had time to explore the village in-between trains I can safely say it now earns its money from three less than industrial sources. Cafes, boutiques and hairdressers!
18:00.
That was an interesting few hours – although most of it was governed by the weather. I headed back to Sheffield with half a mind to traverse the Penistone line as there’s pictures I need, but the weather defeated me. Instead I made a sideways move to Doncaster where conditions were more condusive. As always, there was a large contingent of railway enthusiasts adorning the platform ends or camped out under the canopies using camping chairs. Such a number of people used to be common at major junctions a few decades back but Doncaster is now one of the last bastions.
Ironically, I bumped into two people I knew purely by accident, although one was rail-staff rather than a platform-ender.
Moving on again I headed home via Leeds in order to see how the rush-hour’s shaping up. The answer? Well. It’s the busiest I’ve seen the station since before lockdown. There was a real mix. Commuters on their way home mingled with people having a night out or returning from shopping. The feeling of vibrancy that’s been missing for so long was back. The only thing giving away thd changed times was the amount of folk still wearing masks (including me)
21:30.
Time to draw this rolling blog to a close. I’ve finally made it home after walking just over 15 miles today – including a minor detour via our local pub. Well, after covering that distance with a camera bag on my back I thought I deserved it! Especially when you consider that this part of the world isn’t exactly level. The caps might be flat, but bugger all else is – as my Fitbit stats demonstrate.
I’ll be back working from home tomorrow as I’ve a shedload of pictures to process. I’m sure there’ll be a blog involved too as I’ve plenty of new ammunition for ‘picture of the day’. In the meantime, enjoy your day/night/morning!
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Well, the new week certainly dawned – and it wasn’t a bad one too! In fact the weather here in the Calder valley’s been far sunnier than expected, although someone seems to have forgotten it’s still August and dialed-down the temperature to an October setting! I can’t really complain as most of my day’s been spent staring at a computer screen in order to finish editing all last weeks pictures from my Cumbrian trip and get them on my Zenfolio website. You can find the full selection and which galleries they’ve been added to by clicking on the ‘recent’ button, here’s a shortcut that will take you straight to it!
I’ve another day planned where I’ll be chained to my desk again tomorrow, but as the weather’s meant to be wet I’m hardly going to complain. There’s no shortage of pictures to scan, paperwork to shuffle, blogs to write or trips to plan. Hopefully I’ll be out and about again by Thursday.
In the meantime, here’s the picture of the day, which I took last week. It’s of an unassuming house on the outskirts of Wylam on the Tyne valley. The Wylam waggonway (an early railway) ran past the front of the house, right where I was standing to take the picture.
What’s special is not the house but the person who was born there. On the 9th June 1781 a boy was born to Robert and Mabel Stephenson, they christened him George. George Stephenson became famous as the ‘father of the railways’ – not bad for a child born to illiterate parents who was unable to read and write himself until he was 18! Yet he became world famous as a civil and mechanical engineer. His son Robert (born on the 16th October 1803) followed in his footsteps and the father and son team helped railways conquer the world and the industrial revolution to change the face of Britain.
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A very short blog from me tonight. Life has a habit of getting in the way sometimes and all the things I had planned never happened. It’s the start of a new week tomorrow, so hopefully things will improve. I’ve certainly got enough things on the go to keep me occupied! One of the little projects I’m trying to get finished is editing all of last weeks pictures and uploading them to my Zenfolio website. The picture of the day is one in the queue.
When Hassard and I were in Cumbria earlier in the week the weather was hardly vintage photographic conditions. However, the weather has a remarkable knack of changing! Here’s the view from Parton when it did exactly that. We went from visibility of just a few hundred meters to this in an hour. Here’s the coast of Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland which magically appeared out of the gloom as we were stood on the station waiting for our train back to Carlisle.
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After two days on the road I’ve hardly moved more than a quarter of a mile today as I’ve been busy trying to edit the pictures from my travels as well as sort out all the mundane stuff life throws at you. Despite that, the day’s flown. One thing I have enjoyed has been spending some time in the kitchen, cooking up a Thai Green curry. Admittedly, I ate Asian food in Carlisle but it’s a cuisine I never tire of so the chance to cook my own is never missed.
I’ve another day at home tomorrow before heading back to my old home town (Southport) for a sad event. I blogged about the death of an old friend (Mike Smith) back this time last year. On Sunday, a few of us are going to get together to scatter his ashes in a local park. He was always a short, skinny bugger so I can’t imagine there’s going to be much to scatter, but there you go. No doubt I’ll do a rolling blog of the day and my thoughts. What will be strange for me is that one of the people who’ll be there is an old school friend whom I’ve not seen since the late 1980s after he and I had a ‘parting of the ways’ in India back in 1986. Another long story….
Still, funny old world isn’t eh?
Today’s picture of the day has nothing to do with any of this, it’s from my trip to the Cumbrian coast with another old friend from a slightly different vintage. I mentioned Parton on the Cumbrian coast. Here’s on of the pictures I was after, even if the light wasn’t as good as I’d liked. The railway hugs the coast here. So much so it’s in constant danger of slipping into the sea and has done so on several occasions. It’s the classic conundrum that faces the railways in the age of global warming. The Victorian engineers though this was a good (cheap) way of driving a railway though this part of the world. Those decisions are coming back to haunt us now…
Still, spot the train in this image of the beach at Parton.
Hopefully I’ll have the rest of the several hundred pictures I took added to my Zenfolio website in the next few days. If not – I’m sure there’s other stuff I’ll be able to find to bore you with!
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
